BISHOP PUNISHES SCHOOL OVER BLM, PRIDE FLAGS

Worcester, Mass. — The Diocese of Worcester has told a local middle school that it can no longer identify itself as a Catholic school because it disobeyed the bishop's order to take down its Black Lives Matter and Pride flags.

The Boston Globe reports that Worcester Bishop Robert McManus told the Nativity School of Worcester in a letter this week that flying these flags in front of a Catholic school “sends a mixed, confusing and scandalous message to the public” about the church's stance on important moral and social issues.

The school displayed the flags for more than a year before the bishop objected. The school is a tuition-free private middle school for boys in central Massachusetts, with about 60 students. Students had requested that the flags be flown.

The diocese said it was waiting until after the end of the school year to prohibit the school from identifying itself as a Catholic school, an order that's effective immediately. Mass and sacraments are no longer permitted on school premises.

Thomas McKenney, president of the school, said in a statement Wednesday that the flags simply state that all are welcome at Nativity and this value of inclusion is rooted in Catholic teaching. McKenney added that flying the flags is not an endorsement of any organization or ideology, “they fly in support of marginalized people.”

McManus published a letter in May about the flags. He wrote that symbols that embody specific agendas or ideologies contradict Catholic social and moral teaching.